Having said that, I am interested on what measures others are taking to prepare for it? It's not like we can just store energy right? Stocking up on foods if the prices increase too much?
Things I've done were just to replace few older bulbs with LEDs and turn of some of the unnecessary appliances (like a second freezer).
Set all rooms in the house to 18-19 c. Going to heat my home office/bedroom to 20-21 c only during the day/while being there.
1. https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-...
I’m just gonna ask now because I’ve seen it so often. Is this an idiom or is there some kind of expectation people can do push ups? Personally I can do a bunch of pull ups but I don’t think I’ve ever done a single proper push up. Judging from obesity stats I’d expect like half the populace to not be able to do either.
I'm not. The lower limit of my comfort zone is 19c, anything colder and I can't work.
Hope that electric heating will still be legal.
If you are feeling more adventurous I got through a cold winter where the heating broke when I was a student with a mix of warm clothing, blankets, and doing exercises to keep warm. When you start getting cold, do some press-ups/squats etc.
If you are feeling really adventurous I would recommend going outside wearing less clothes than you want to, just trousers and a shirt/jumper. When you get really cold head back in and it will seem positively warm! Another way of doing this is cold showers.
Air source heat pump (split AC unit) is the way to go. Those things have efficiencies of 200-600%.
I find the warmth lasts about an hour and has the side effect of also warming my office a degree or so.
My combined water boiler is set to turn on/off on schedule. When running off electricity it only heats water during the night.
Some other appliances are also set to work on schedule. Washing machine, dish washer etc... usually run overnight.
All computers are set to sleep after 10 min of inactivity. The only things that are on 24/7 are APs, a few cameras and a NAS.
I also have a garden. I grow/pickle my own tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, apples, prunes, mushrooms, nuts, berries. But not potatoes, since those are cheap to buy.
I think in total, it would be enough to last for 3-4 months.
- Move to more energy efficient dwellings
- Get good insulating windows
- Get an AC/heat pump
- Substitute old appliances with more modern and efficient ones
- Get an induction stove, much more efficient than a gas stove
- Thermal clothing does wonder.
- You can easily sleep in a cold room if your bed is properly insulated, if you are still cold consider heating your bed with an electric heater.
- If you take frequent showers/baths, consider doing some of them with cold water (which has a lot of health/cognitive benefits btw), for baths you can easily install a filtering/reflow device like the one used for small pool, insulate the bathtub, for showers simply use less hot water / less water in general.
- Almost all EU states should have programs in place to ease these sort of upgrades
Even just a hot water bottle would go a long way.
You can store energy of course and even hoard it which increases the problem. Here in Poland first there were 2 week lines for coal and now there is none. Pellet has gone up in price 3x. Electric price has gone up 2-3x. Gas supply is in question. The government has said to burn anything for heat you can get your hands on which means low quality coal, peat and trash. Even if I have energy, my lungs would pay the price.
Some people are running the numbers and realizing that they can temporarily move to a warm country for the price of their heating and electric bills.
My understanding so far is that industry will freeze (as needed) so that all the reserves can be used for people. I get a feeling that this crisis is becoming more media-gorging-on-crisis-clicks than it is an objective analysis.
When industry dies the social safety net dies, it will happen when the Euro looses its value, in which case money printing will no longer be possible without hyperinflation. And a devalued Euro is only useful if there is still an industry left to export things.
Once that happens people will actually freeze.
https://www.ft.com/content/46d3c3fb-e79a-464c-afe1-7079d3e4f...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-17/energy-cr...
You are most likely talking older and poorer people. Some will maybe get sick due to insufficient money to heat, some will die from monoxide poisoning from using unfamiliar and improper stoves.
Slovakian ministers are talking about people having to go into the woods secretly to cut down wood to set on fire. There are countries where they are fully expecting people who work for a living not being able to afford to heat their homes.
People are going to die over this.
Yes.
An average of 9,700 deaths each year are believed to be caused by living in a cold house, according to research by National Energy Action (NEA) (UK).
Why do you think that with less heating, or the same heating cost 4x the amount, the situation would be better?
France has the capability to selectively cut off some neighborhood from the grid and they plan to do 2 hours rotations if need arises.
I don't know if they are going so far as moving people out of their house to gather them in a larger building that is easier to heat.
Quite frankly, I don't expect to hear about the real plans before mid-october.
I know the government reached some industrials which were usually left off energy offset plans (basically processing factories), so this might be serious, but honestly, people heating with electricity should be fine.
If I had to guess, I'd say much more than usual, but not a calamitous amount like millions or anything. Every winter, elderly who can't take good care of themselves succumb to cold or illness. For one winter, I'd say that most average people will be able to survive, albeit uncomfortably doing things like burning through their remaining savings or getting deeper into debt, huddling in bed together or wearing thick layers indoors, and finding trees to chop down for wood if desperate.
This prediction is just for 1 winter. If this situation lasts until the next winter, people/governments will be even more screwed financially by then and the outcome will likely be calamitous then.
> My understanding so far is that industry will freeze (as needed) so that all the reserves can be used for people.
Real economies aren't video games that have a pause button. We learned during Covid that shutdowns that are labeled as temporary are not so. Supply chains get ruined: machines and spare parts and needed chemicals get harder and harder to find. Businesses can't afford to pay rent and wages for months with no income and have to shut down. Truly skilled employees with real domain knowledge use the shutdown to retire early or change careers and their knowledge of processes is lost. Etc.
And this isn't a normal time where the governments of the world can really go further and extend themselves to really help and minimize the impact: they blew themselves out financially overreacting to Covid and are insisting on blowing out whatever remaining financial resources they might have to endlessly signal their virtue against Putin.
Just to get people's attention.
Shit will be fine.
For highly payed ivory tower folks, yes. For everyone else, it's going to be difficult. Energy is everything in modern society.
Who do you know who is old and frail and might need looking in on? Who do you know who has very young children? Who do you know who is good at cooking? Who might need food? Who can coordinate getting it to them? Who do you know who has a big enough house to host a warm potluck meal over the winter every week or so? Do you have enough people to rotate houses?
Look for what in the US is sometimes called a mutual aid group. If you don't have one: pick two friends, make one.
Also, expect to allocate larger budget for gas & electricity bill. I do expect the govt. to cushion the blow for consumers tho, so I'd be surprised if my bill ended up 600% up, but it won't break the bank.
1. I live in a large three story townhouse. Admittedly too big for my family of 3. I’m going to leave the top floor unheated (I have under floor heating, so I can turn it off on a per room/floor basis).
2. Turn off my PC when not in use, and most other appliances.
3. Switch to a shower for my little one that enjoys the bathtub and hot water :-( and shorter showers for us adults.
4. Generally keep the temps lower than what we used to.
5. This summer I already replaced the radiators with under floor heating. I could not get hold of a air to water heat pump yet because eod the supply chain. At some point that will help close off Gas at home. Switched from Gas stove top to induction.
6. Solar panels will be installed in December/January(earliest I could get someone to install on the roof)!
Not sure what else I can do..
So far, until December gas has gone up for me about 2x (now 1.67 eur/m3 or so? Whereas electricity is at 0.48/kWh, so up about 2.4 fold compared to 2 years ago), meaning about 300 eur/month for gas, ~150 for electricity which is not a real problem for us... yet... I guess for January 2023 the price may go up much higher...
Power might be a bit of a problem. I don't think it's going to go out, of course, because my little corner of Germany is connected to a bunch of hydro and solar power plants and there is the nuclear power plant "Isar" only a 100 km from here, which probably will be running if things go bad. But it's the price i'm worried about. There is some legislation coming up, that may help with that, though.
I have a free-standing air-conditioner that I got because temperatures hit records this year, are you saying I should put the cold side of it outside and pipe the tube into my home?
Split A/C units (like ceiling mounted ones) are uncommon in most of Northern Europe residential buildings..
Funny thing is that one year ago always was saying me “a fixed price will cost you more, font do it”. Now I’m laughing, there were all the signals of the rising of energy prices.
Maybe I'll finally replace the old oven. Partly because a new one might be more efficient, though mainly because I've been thinking of doing that for ages as it is ancient and possibly on its last legs.
Might get the gas fire that hasn't been turned on for years serviced, so I can heat just the living room at times instead of the whole flat via central heating, though without taking time to work out the maths I don't know if that is likely to make much difference to a small place like mine.
Though I do really have to do much, having the luxury of being comfortable enough that the extra cost is only an irritation, not a life changing problem that it might be for people who are struggling financially already, and my place is pretty well insulated.
I am 100% electric, though.
I did get a massively reduced bill last month though. The only thing I can really ascribe that to is only filling the kettle with minimal water, and getting my son to turn his gaming pc off when he's not using it!
I've seen some iffy advice for adding smart plugs to everything (in at least one case in an article sponsored by a smart device manufacturer, go figure, though that fact was not exactly clear in the headline or main text). It is one of those things where the maths often doesn't work out: will that media player or microwave on standby really consume significantly more power than the smart-plug with built-in wireless (and the alexa/google/other hub to control it if needed)? And would it not be just as easy to flick the switch yourself given you won't need to use it remotely?
I am adding smart plugs to some things, but for convenience (that “being to lazy to physically go to the switch and press it” factor) more than power saving.
Can set a "Hibernate if idle after X minutes" instead.
That was based on comments from the outgoing UK PM. I don't drink the stuff myself, but “epic amounts of tea” is not an unusual concept amongst many of my friends over here.
But I'm sure it really isn't responsible for the vast majority of my energy usage. Its the only real change I made though over the last month, so not sure why my usage has dropped...
for heating energy, you can just get like i did several camping stove gas cartriges or just go off and buy a Propane tank, which will last very very long.
The current conditions are unlikely to be future conditions in a perfectly straight line.
None of the advice in this thread around conservation and solar/etc is bad, though, since reducing your energy bill also helps if you lose your job, but i'd be concerned if you decided to go into large amounts of debt right now.
You'll probably get a better deal on that solar conversion in a year or two (provided that you've still got a job and the funds to do it).
For lights everything is LED, and I have bought 20+ camping gas stove cartridges for my itawani stove. A 100+ of candles for power outages (3-5 boxes of 30 normal Duni long candles) and about 400+ paraffin tea candles.
Live in an old thick stone blrick building with insulation, but still buy thermal underwear if you font have it and get used to wearing layers of clothing.
With that being said, it's easier to heat yourself than it is to heat the living space, so bundle up!
This is sort of true, but only because the density of humid air is lower, and thus the heat capacity (though IIRC the specific heat of gaseous water is actually quite a bit higher than N2/O2, which takes back a lot of that benefit). There is no meaningful change in heat conductivity given that the medium is a (highly convective) gas, obviously.
The overwhelming majority of the energy used to heat your "living space" doesn't go into the air anyway, it's used to heat the walls and floors and furniture which make up the bulk of your home's mass. Being able to heat the air around your candle rapidly doesn't change anything, because that air will just cool down when it hits the ceiling.
As for the air cooling down when it hits the ceiling, this is true.. for a period of time. In an ideal situation you have a significant amount of insulation on the other side of the ceiling which inhibits thermal loss.
In my case, I have a heat pump and electric resistance backup. A few years ago I added a whole-house humidifier, which made my home feel significantly warmer at the same set-point and reduced the amount of electricity that I used each month under similar weather conditions.
More on this, I grew potatoes recently in my garden and stocked them in my garage. A tote of potatoes can last a couple people for months. It requires potatoes, some sand and a cool, dark place to keep it all.
It absolutely sucks — but it isn’t the end of the world.
Edit: TIL that 18°C is positively balmy compared to how some run their houses!
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/tag/heating-and-cooling.ht...
I do want a solar installation for myself though.
Yes, you can purchase lithium-ion-phosphate batteries, charger/inverters, and high-gauge conductors readily on Amazon and Aliexpress.
> Stocking up on foods if the prices increase too much?
I mean, you should already have a chest freezer stocked with meats, 500 gallons of water, and 400lbs of dry rice/wheat/beans, as a bare minimum, right?
Or are you one of those people who considered preppers "crazy", and deserve exactly what's coming for not procuring basic insurance whilst denigrating the people who did for their "insanity"?
I miss the old lady who used to live under me. My winter heating bill increased when she left for hospice care and a skint young'n' moved in!
If you own your home and you haven't already, do an energy audit [0]. Pay especially close attention to window and door seals. These wear out over time. You can lose a surprising amount of heat through these, and they are very inexpensive to fix. If you have ducted HVAC, check the ducts for leaks as well. Adding additional insulation if possible will also help.
Figure out what your biggest energy sinks are. In most homes the HVAC is the biggest power draw. After that you're looking at major appliances like stoves, washers and dryers, refrigerators, water heater and the like. If you can replace these with more energy efficient versions, it may be worth considering. For ones you can't, figure out ways to use them less.
Close off areas you aren't using. If you have rooms in your home/apartment that are largely unoccupied or only occasionally occupied (like a home office), close them off and consolidate into fewer rooms. If it gets especially cold, close the vents if you have ducted HVAC, seal the doors with tape and put a blanket at the bottom of the door. This will help further seal the heat into the occupied areas. But be careful that you don't cause pipes to freeze by doing this.
Stock up on foods you don't need power to cook. Shelf-stable canned goods are a good bet. It won't be gourmet, but it will keep you alive. If you are in an area that stays suitably cold throughout the winter you could use a cooler outside for food storage instead of a refrigerator.
If you have alternative means of heating (like a fireplace) go ahead and prepare to start using that a lot more. Get supplies like firewood or pellets now and, if possible, be sure you have enough to last you through the winter with increased usage. Find the lowest temperature you can tolerate at home, even if that means you may have to wear a light coat inside.
Monitor your usage regularly. If your utility provides realtime or near realtime usage information, find that now and get in the habit of checking it often. If not, figure out how to read your meter and check it at least daily.
And finally, just try to find ways to not be at home. If you can go work in an office or even a coffee shop, that's a few hours you won't have to keep your home as warm. Try to make your home just for sleeping and adjust the temperature in the home when you are away accordingly. Having a programmable/remote thermostat helps here.
[0] https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/do-it-yourself-home-energ...
